Michael

The Stan thing was ridiculous, but it was also very clever. It kept Sami in story, and Dan Wells did a (shockingly) terrific job of mimicking her mannerisms and convincing you that he was really Sami in drag.

It wasn't super well-received, though I think part of that was the fact that they wrote a horrible story for Sami during that time. S/he was running around "getting revenge" on... Mimi and Tek and all these random people. Meanwhile, Kate -- the actual object of her ire -- barely got touched, and then Stan/Sami wound up being a part of this horrible rescue mission to "the war in the Middle East" in which Shawn, Lucas, Brady, and Rex went to save Phillip from "the terrorists," who turned out to be Tony DiMera & Co.

Yes, it was as stupid as it sounds.

They barely touched the really fun aspect of the story, which would have been Lucas (who had just dumped Sami and thought she was out of town) being drawn to Stan and having all these confused feelings over it.

I feel like, based on what I was reading in the soap press at the time, the twins-by-different-fathers angle was deemed ridiculous back then. And people resented that Blake had cheated on Ross with Rick... even though they were playing out that skeezy Ben Warren story around the same time.

That's funny about Jerry ver Dorn! Hadn't occurred to me.

Does anyone know why they retconned Kevin's paternity? (When was that, like 1999-2000?) It doesn't seem like that was during a regime change where they were trying to fix "mistakes" made by a prior set of writers...

I'm of two minds on NSA. On one hand I didn't much care for her as an actress, on the other I felt it important for her continue as Michelle. I personally thought she and Cosgove clicked as did Danny and Cassie.

I wanted Michelle to continue, but not in that way. She was so cold, especially during the custody fight for Robbie, that I was rooting for Danny 100%. I was rooting for a mobster over a legacy character, the daughter of the show's core family. It was very sad. I loathed her at that time and could not watch her with anyone, including Bill. There were also scenes that made me hate her, even if her actions were justified, where she told Holly not to be around Robbie, and this helped break Ed/Holly up and send Holly back to the freezer. Then I tried to tolerate her again, which I did for a while, but that amnesia story was horrible. Worst amnesia story ever, ever! I could not watch most of that.

OMG, I totally blocked out that amnesia story. That was awful. NSA, at least in this role, did not have the chops to carry a storyline. That recast just never made sense to me. It was as if they forgot that Michelle was supposed to be younger than Danny and wasn't some long-suffering mob wife. They just took all the fire out of the character, both by casting older/more matronly and by casting someone as bland as NSA.

It is such a shame what happened to the Ben Reade character. On principle, I shouldn't hate it, because when they do those killer storylines, I hate when it's a copout and turns out to be some dayplayer as the culprit. But this was just so asinine and thoroughly wrecked not only Ben, but Fletcher as a parent. Horrible. I'm really glad that he at least merited a mention in the finale.

Thanks for the clarification re: Rick/Abby and the Claire situation. Rick's relationship with Abby seems like yet another case where they just didn't bother to really build story for one of his relationships. Weird.

I always forget that the Jesse/Michelle period ran right into the Santos thing. It's too bad the mob hadn't eaten GL (and/or if San Cristobal hadn't been going on at the exact same time), because Michelle and Danny were a great beginning for a love story. It just devolved really quickly into "Carmen bad!" and so much repetitive garbage. Recasting Michelle with NSA was such a mess, too. Did they ever try her Michelle with Cosgrove's Bill? I have this vague memory of them going there, maybe 2003-04. It always seemed like Michelle and Bill should wind up involved, if not together-together. That could've been a strong triangle. I remember that horrible story where they tested Michelle with the recast Tony Santos. I think they walked around an island filthy for 3 weeks, fell in some ravines, and then that was that.

I feel like I'm rambling, but it's fun to do this free-association wandering down Memory Lane. I totally agree about the family unit of Jesse/Drew/Max -- that felt very GL to me and was surprisingly lovely. I wasn't a huge fan of Drew winding up as Selena and Ben's kid, only because that was the sort of thing that soaps became overly dependent upon starting in the late 90s (and became an absolute parody when Days played parental roulette with Rex and Cassie). GL did an even worse version of it with Ava, Olivia, and Jeffrey in '06 or '07. But there were a lot of nice things about that little story.

Rick/Abby always intrigued me. I think I got into soaps around the time Abby shot Roy, so they were always this thing that was going on as I was getting to know the GL landscape. They tanked them for Rick to sleep with Claire? That's idiotic. I just re-read Abby's history, and it really seems like they had built to a big love story for them. Does anyone know why they wrote her out? She was never mentioned again, huh?

I never got why they did that Rick/Harley hookup. Harley already had 500 kids, and it made them both look like idiots. I liked that they brought in Mel for him, but they didn't really create a story there, just a character to pair Rick with. As was said above, the Boudreaux family had some promise initially, but for years, it was just Mel hanging around. All the Clayton and Felicia recasts made them feel like random dayplayers when they were actually shown.

Good question, Michael. As I recall, around the time DK/EW came up with this story, Rick and Mel were having problems and he was secretly boinking Beth at the Beacon. Once they Mel discovered the affair, I think they brought Leah in to help reconcile her parents? Who knows. There were some scenes in the Bauer backyard with the three of them tossing the football and all. Then a period of time that she didn't speak to Rick much and blamed him for the problems in their family....

Speaking of... I feel like they spent 15-20 years just throwing Rick at random crap that never really "stuck."

I'm aware of the 80s and early 90s history, but as I wasn't old enough to pay attention until the mid-late 90s, I was wondering if you guys had any greater insight into the character of Rick. I always found MOL to be a likable actor, but it seemed the show -- regardless of regime -- was never able to commit to him as a lead actor. That might not have been such a big deal if he hadn't wound up the last Bauer standing. His most concrete relationship seems to have been his friendship with Phillip, but he never seems to have had a relationship that really defined him. Why do you guys think that was? Was there a relationship that should've lasted longer than it did, and after they lost that, the character never got back on track?

ICAM that they never should have aged Leah the way that they did. I was simply saying that since they did it, they should have cast the role alot better than what they did so it wasn't a complete and utter disaster. But you're probably right - it would have still failed because of the destruction done to the history of the show.

DK/EW never did pay much attention to character aging/de-aging anyway. Look what they did to Susan/Daisy.

The Susan/Daisy one still drives me insane. At best, the girl didn't age for seven years.

As for Leah -- I think the only way they could've salvaged that one was to age her siblings/contemporaries, too. I didn't particularly want a new crop of teens running around, but if Jude and Zach had been made 15 or so, with James having been aged anyway, I think I'd have had an easier time swallowing it. It was still egregious, but at least I wouldn't have had to pretend she didn't exist.

Why did they age her, anyway? Was there ever any indication of what they were going to do with her as a teen?